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In this Discussion
Road trip, non-Hudson (long)
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Last weekend I drove up to Indy to help out a friend. By "help", I mean take an un-wanted vehicle off his hands. It is a 1978 VW camper he has had for about 10 years. The engine was completely rebuilt about 8 years ago, and it has barely been driven since 2003. The arrangement was that he would give it a good once over to make sure that it was up for the 300 mile drive back here. Upon arrival, I was going to follow up and finish anything he couldn't get to.
We arrived about 10PM friday night. Saturday at noon, we headed over to the storage unit he had the bus in. It took about 2 hours to get the bus emptied and out of the unit. He has every nook and cranny packed with tools, parts, and whatever else he didn't have a home for. Needless to say, he never got around to doing any prep with the bus. It started right up, but wouldn't idle and the clutch was so far out of adjustment that you could barely get it into any gear. After calling around to a 1/2 a dozen auto parts stores, I found that there was not a clutch cable to be had in Indy. After an oil and filter change, I called it a day.
Sunday morning, I found some M8 nuts in the spare part he had and spaced out the clutch cable to get it set right. I serviced the K&N air filter, set the points, set the timing, and tensioned the fan belt. After all that, the idle stabilized and the shifting was smooth. The brakes, tires, and lights were all good. At this point, I decided we were ready to go. I had packed all sorts of tools and had spare parts for most of the common failures. We hit the road on Sunday just before 2:00 PM. My 11 year old daughter rode with me in the bus while the rest of the family followed in the brand X. The bus ran flawlessly, and got about 18MPG. We passed a total of 2 cars over 300 miles of interstate, 1 suburban driving about 50 and a loaded semi climbing a steep grade at about 45. The semi passed us again about 5 miles down the road.
Driving a VW bus is quite an experience. If you don't get a wave, you're garenteed a smile or a Peace sign if your lucky. It doesn't drive nearly as nice as a Hudson that is 30 years older, but it's fun in it's own right.
Not that I needed another project, but it was to hard to pass it up. My 2 older daughters have very fond memories of this bus and will never let me live down selling our favorite one.
Required Hudson content: The trip made me anxious to get the Hudson out for a longer trip in the near future.
Matt
Westy_121264914446887.jpg580 x 480 - 17K -
This brings back memories...in the late 60's my college roommate and I co-owned a plain ol' 62 bus with the stunning 1200cc, 36 hp powerplant. We built bunks in it, loaded it up with scuba gear and jerry cans of gas we pumped out of his father's farm tank, and traveled around Eastern Canada diving. (Yes there is lots of scuba diving up there.) Down a steep hill in a gale-force tailwind that baby would almost do 65mph fully loaded. Once we broke a ring on the highway. We walked into the nearest town, bought new rings, walked back, took the engine out on the side of the road, replaced the rings using a hose clap as a ring spreader, and were on our way. Sometimes you had to get under it and hit the starter motor with a hammer. One of our buddies had his head out the passenger's side window when I made an emergency stop, and the sliding glass damn near decapitated him. Ah, youth...wasted on the young...
HETfortyqtpi@earthlink.net (drop the HET) -
Yep, had a 65 bus we nicknamed Weedhopper, it had something to do with being in a field with a bunch of guys with overfull bladders and no path of any kind. We were coming back from a late night fishing trip and had forgotten to hit the mens room before we hit the road. After much pleading I finally pulled off into this field that had been disked going way to fast and we went hopping from rut to rut while I tried to slow down. Luckily even after all the bouncing no one leaked and we all piled out of weedhopper to replenish the water table. Ah, the memories of a misspent youth.
Harry -
In the v early 70's, the girl I eventually married & I spent 2 years living in one of these (without the pop top). The faithful beast carried us from India to England & back, including a side trip to Banyan in Afghanistan to see the giant Buddha's. Into North Africa, Morocco & Algeria with a crossing of the Sahara into Chad to visit the famed dessert city of Timbuktoo & then back to Algiers -->Europe --> Katmandu Nepal. Got caught up in the India/Pakistan war of '70/71 & got Indian Govt permission to sell it via a Customs Dept auction. Some days after the auction & handover. the purchasers driver contacted me to ask "where was the radiator" as he wanted to check the water!!! LOL
Prob 30k hard miles with only one serious breakdown. Not fast but very faithful!!
PS Some 40 years later we're still married - musta bin the "test drive" !!!
Dave Y
New Zealand -
I always liked those old VW buses. The only VW I ever owned was a '68 Fastback with the electronic fuel injection.....worse POS they ever made! In '69, they went back to carbs I'm told. But a buddy of mine had a bus back in the early '80's that was a lot of fun to drive.
